USA forward Joe Pavelski reacts with teammates after scoring a goal against Russia in the third period of a men's ice hockey game at the 2014 Winter Olympics, on Saturday.

David J. PhillipAP

The U.S. Olympic ice hockey team beat Russia 3-2 on the ice at the Sochi Games in a heart-stopping sudden-death shootout.

Although only a preliminary round, the contest was reminiscent of the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" at the Lake Placid Games when a group of American college players beat the formidable Soviet team in what became a touchstone of Cold War Olympic rivalry.

T.J. Oshie of the St. Louis Blues scored the game-winning point in the eighth round of the shootout that ended the clash among some of international hockey's best players.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was watching along with a capacity crowd at Sochi's Bolshoy Ice Dome. Putin, appeared who was sitting with IOC President Thomas Bach behind a railing at the dome.

The Washington Post reports that the "raucous, sellout crowd ... watched the teams skate to a 2-2 at the end of regulation, a score that held up only because an apparent Russian goal with 4:40 left in the third period was disallowed after video review. The long blast from Fyodor Tyutin from just inside the blue line hit the back of the net, past U.S. goalie Jonathan Quick, but was waved off after a video review showed the net was off its moorings."

"The U.S. and Russian hockey teams went at each other for a full 60 minutes ... in a game that felt like an instant classic even as it was going on."

"That such a compelling contest, tied at the end of regulation and a five-minute overtime, could be ended on penalty shots seemed somehow anticlimactic – until the respective skaters went back and forth, eight times apiece, before T.J. Oshie won it for the Americans."